Pick A Tribemate

Previously on The Cheese Stands Alone: Colby was riding high at Mogo Mogo, and when his team dropped a combined reward/immunity challenge, he was fuming over the loss but downright giddy at the thought of getting rid of Jerri. Meanwhile, Kathy responded favorably to the sucking-up she received during a day with Chapera, in which she horned in on a share of a luxury reward she had no part in winning. Back at Mogo Mogo, Ethan apologized for playing not one but two substantial roles in dropping the challenge, but Colby's eye was on the prize of putting Jerri's ass on his wall right to his biggest stuffed bison head. Unfortunately for him, Colby slightly miscalculated by not noticing that Lex had no desire to try to get to the end by clutching the tail of a Colby/Ethan powerhouse alliance, and he made an unexpected move and approached Jerri and Shii Ann to join him in voting out Colby instead of Jerri. When Shii Ann flipped a none-too-shiny mental coin that came up "whatever -- Colby, I guess," Colby was indeed banished from the game. Adios, Razor-Boy. May you live many years happy and stubbled, which is just the way I'll try to remember you.

Credits. All of a sudden, this show exhausts me. It's like the life has been sucked out of it with a Hoover. I'm surprised it's not affecting the tides. Is it over yet? Bleh.

We fade in on Mogo Mogo on Night 19, where a thunderstorm is in full swing. Kathy is returning in darkness from her Chapera adventure, noting that the team is still at tribal council. She remarks that rattling around by herself at camp is "depressing." She actually manages, while pondering the fact that she ate and partied all day and avoided tribal council, to feel sorry for herself, which is quite a remarkable feat. She bitches about the rain, bitches about the fire...it's charming, really. It makes me want to sit right down and befriend her. Not.

Later, as the fire clings to life, the rest of the tribe returns. Kathy voices over that she didn't get "hugs" when they came back. Gee, nitwit, this couldn't possibly be because they were tired and hungry and not totally focused on the importance of your recently pampered ass, could it? No. No, I'm sure it means they're just not a good tribe. She compares the non-huggers of Mogo Mogo unfavorably to the huggers over at Chapera, who happily hugged her the minute she joined them. She says that the mood about Colby's ouster was "very somber and sad." Apparently, Jerri is successfully fighting the urge to write "COLBY" in the wet sand with one toe just so that she can stomp all over it, wait for the water to wash the sand smooth, and write "JERRI RULZ HA HA HA" right over it. Believe it or not, it turns out that Colby left his Texas hat back at camp -- which is how you can tell he had no clue he was going to be voted out. It's like the very end of The Goodbye Girl, with Colby in the role of Richard Dreyfuss, which seems like a little bit of a disconnect. (Jeff Probst, of course, would play Marsha Mason.) The remaining members of Mogo Mogo all discuss the fact that the hat will have to be returned to him. Well, sure. It's all about the things that really matter. Kathy says that having Colby gone "summarizes" Mogo Mogo. What? She goes on to whine that the tribe never "amounted to a whole lot," and that Colby was "holding [them] back" by not trusting anyone. Wha? What is she talking about? Is she saying it's good? And the tribe is bad? Then how does having him gone "summarize" the tribe? My head hurts. I think I need a margarita. Or six. Anyway, Kathy says it's "too late for [Mogo Mogo] to rally," and now, it's especially bad because "Ethan is questioning it all." All of what? The meaning of life? The origins of Dr Pepper? The loyalty of a tribe that now obviously wants to vote him out? I don't mean to sound desperately lost within the first five minutes, but seriously, what is she talking about? We get one last lingering, nostalgic shot of Colby's hat, because when it comes to sizing up character, it all comes down to...headgear.

The morning of Day 20 dawns at Mogo Mogo, and Ethan sits with his buff wrapped around his head, Fairplay-style, hearing from everyone about Colby's departure and how Colby never saw it coming. It's sort of interesting -- you don't often hear the tribe discussing people after they're gone. To her credit, Jerri seems to be staying mostly out of this particular powwow. She seems aware that she can't avoid looking like she's gloating if she gets too far into the dissection of the downfall of her nemesis, so she's doing what she said she was going to do from the beginning -- keeping her mouth shut. Ethan is wearing a dumb little grimace. In an interview, he grins from ear to ear, trying to appear cute, and says, "Ooh, don't I feel silly." He voices over that he was expecting a single vote for him (Jerri's) and four for Jerri: "I thought everything was going smoothly, and...boom." He comments that he was just as fooled as Colby was by what happened, in the end. "And I had no idea," he says. Well, at least he admits it. Clouds fly across the sky. Time passes. And...Ethan is still talking. He says that he had believed himself to be pretty close to Lex, but obviously this turn of events makes him question that: "Not after I was left out of those plans." Ethan mourns the loss of his "bond" with Lex. Apparently, Ethan must have intended eventually to step aside and allow Lex to win the money if it came down to that, rather than trying to win it for himself, because if not, he's being an enormous crybaby hypocrite, and I'm sure it's not that. "That hurts," Ethan says with great earnestness, trying to make himself seem sympathetic and failing miserably.

In an interview, Jerri finally lets out the gloating laugh she has been working her ass off to contain at camp. She claps her hands and giggles joyfully: "Yes, I feel...I could be evil right now, but boy, does it feel good." The sun beats down. She sits on the beach, holding her head, trying to contain the evil gloating that is trying to burst from the top of her head, fully formed, like something out of Greek mythology. She interviews that she has now achieved one of her goals in the game, which was outlasting Colby: "Knock knock, you hear that sound, Colby? That's the bellboy, and he just took all my baggage away." Well...I mean, apparently not, given that you kind of lose your advantage in that area if you have to mention it, but I'll admit that she might be down to a small carry-on instead of hauling around six of those trunks people took on trips across the Atlantic once upon a time.

Over at Chapera, Alicia, Jenna, and Amber open up some treemail. It includes a bottle with a rolled-up note inside. The note with the bottle tells them that one representative of the team has to get on a boat and visit the other tribe. During the visit, they'll open the note in the bottle and read it aloud. Amber says that nobody wanted to be the one sent to Mogo Mogo. After all, what if that person has to stay and can't come back to Love Camp? No swing! No singing songs! No snuggles! Unable to decide on a team representative, Chapera draws straws, and it turns out that Jenna has to go to Mogo Mogo. She interviews good-naturedly but with great disappointment that she doesn't think this is a good sign. As the boat comes for her, Rob says, "All right, sweet-haaaht, have fun," and when you hear the Boston accent say "sweetheart," you understand (I hope) why Sars and I both have a sizable and undeniable soft spot for it. God, I love that. I should hire a guy from Boston (or, even better, Maine) to live in my apartment and call me "sweetheart" six times a day.

Anyway. Over at Mogo Mogo, Lex argues that nobody should be forced to go to Chapera who doesn't want to, and that it should be a decision everyone is comfortable with. Kathy, contrary to what she said she was going to do yesterday, tells everyone that she "definitely had a good rapport" with Chapera. So it's Kathy who's going. Well, that's good. Maybe now she can get those hugs, because God knows, Kathy gets all bent out of shape without her hugs. Damn hugs. Everyone yells that they love her as she heads out. Thanks for doing your part to cheapen the vocabulary, Mogo Mogo.

The boats carry the ambassadors in both directions. Jenna hops off at Mogo Mogo, and is welcomed by -- ew -- Shii Ann, of all people. They break open the bottle to get the message out. It instructs Jenna to survey the camp at Mogo Mogo and write down the three items she thinks her team would like to play for at the reward challenge. She's not supposed to tell anyone what she's picking.

Kathy returns to Chapera and acts obnoxiously triumphant and oh-I-know-you-love-me about it. Amber repeats the instructions. Alicia talks sarcastically about how Kathy tried to act like she was going to write down stuff they'd never miss. Alicia, however, has opened her calendar from yesterday and seen no entry for "be born," so she isn't buying. She talks about how the members of Chapera were all really uncomfortable, because their camp has a ton of stuff that they love and do not want to give up. In a truly gross interview, Kathy stresses the importance of "networking." Oh, bleh. Can we keep the annoying business-speak out of this, please? I didn't bring my Dilbert-to-English translator. Can she not say "building relationships" or "making friends" or "developing trust" or something other than "networking"? Because, ew. Anyway, Chapera has Kathy's number so thoroughly that they are now the official title-holders to her number, and they pet her with how happy they were to see her, and of course, she buys it -- hook, line, and sinker. She's very convinced that they dearly love her. Whatever, dummy. You're not nearly as crafty as you think.

We cut directly to the scene of the challenge, which is a log-rolling setup over water. Jeff first calls Kathy and Jenna in, and then he invites the rest of the tribes to join them. He explains that the reward challenge will be played for -- duh -- the items that Kathy and Jenna wrote down. The challenge is a simple log-rolling game in which men will play men and women will play women. First person in the water is out; winner scores a point for his or her tribe. Reward will go to the first tribe to score five points. And now, to announce the chosen items. If Chapera wins, they will get the grill, one bag of rice, and the "Hawaiian sling" (which is the fishing spear). If Mogo Mogo wins, they will get one blanket, the parachute, and the tarp. So Kathy just screwed herself, because she just screwed Chapera by taking the stuff they most wanted to keep, after specifically promising she wouldn't. Idiot. Big Tom is sitting out the challenge for Chapera. Yeah, I'm not sure "lithe" is in the list of adjectives commonly used to describe Big Tom.